I Hope You Never Learn How To Peel An Orange—

If you ever find your way back to me,

I won’t hold anything against you.

I will receive you as you are,

nothing changed, nothing concealed—

The way the evening sky gathers the bruised light of the city,

quietly, without judgment,

I asked you if there is still a chance for us—

sometime, someday.

You said there is.

A possibility, you called it.

Soft as a door left barely open.

But then you said:

I’m with him now.

And I keep returning to that moment—

wondering where those words were

when he first drew near,

when he began orbiting your hours,

slipping into the spaces

I once called mine.

When he pursued you

and we were still we—

did truth try to speak then too?

Did it knock against your teeth

but you choose silence instead?

Strange, isn’t it?

How clarity arrives late,

fully dressed and certain,

only after the ending.

You can say it now without trembling.

Yet back then,

Stay—I will.

If you ask, I will.

Will you stay too?

Stay here beside me,

so near that even silence

feels shared.

Let nothing exist beyond this closeness—

no clocks,

no distance,

no elsewhere.

Time loosens into gentle fragments,

no longer something to solve,

The night does not reach for morning—

it is already full

with you in it.

Even the air holds its breath

so it won’t disturb us.

This moment—

warm, unguarded,

alive—

we linger

until what remains between us

is not memory,

not longing,

Hope is a constant flickering light—

when all else is unknown,

when the mind wears

its dark gray skies.

You look for the smallest glimmer—

a candle breathing softly

in the quiet between heartbeats.

It is the thought of your voice

I still remember,

the warmth that once rested

near my shoulder,

the way your name

moves through me

without sound.

It does not demand,

it waits,

like a hand left open,

unafraid of empty air.

A gentle ember

kept alive by memory,

by almost-touch,

by unfinished sentences,

by the way love lingers

without asking permission to stay.

Enough light to soften the night—

enough warmth to believe

if you ever turn back

it would still feel

Through every yesterday, today, and all the tomorrows, it has been you, it is you, it will always be you.

I still feel the weight of your hand in mine,

I still see your face in blank walls,

I still hear your voice in empty rooms—

A memory engraved,

a reminder that some things are too deep to fade.

We stumbled through the unknown,

Hearts bruised but unbroken,

In the spaces between fear and hope.

Every laugh, every tear, every whispered word

Carved a path straight back to you.

I carry your presence

In the shape of morning light,

In the scent of streets we once wandered,

In the soft corners of songs that speak your name.

And if all the world should change,

If the stars themselves forget their way,

I would still find you,

For you are my constant—

The quiet certainty that anchors my heart.

Through every yesterday,

today,

and all the tomorrows,

it has been you,

it is you,

Time does heal.

Not by erasing what was

but by reweaving what is.

There was a season

when my chest was a closed fist,

lungs forgetting their work,

each breath negotiated

like borrowed air.

Love—or its leaving—

sat heavy as stone.

But now,

my heart keeps time again.

Not loudly, not triumphantly,

just steadily.

A quiet drum

that remembers its own rhythm.

There is still a pang,

a soft echo of wanting,

but it no longer breaks the walls.

It only passes through them.

Strange, gentle discovery—

this living afterward:

the heart learns

its home is itself,

and it is allowed

Where do I go without you?

I go to the mornings

that no longer wait for your voice

to begin.

They arrive anyway—

soft, indifferent, real.

I go to the space

where your name still echoes,

but doesn’t command me

to stop living.

I go to the version of myself

I kept quiet

so you could stay loud.

I learn how to sit

without reaching,

how to breathe

without borrowing your lungs.

Some nights, I still look for you

in old habits,

in pauses,

in the way silence used to mean us.

But even then,

I don’t turn back.

I go forward carrying love

without dragging hope behind it.

I go somewhere unfamiliar—

not because I stopped loving you,

but because I remembered

I will always care for you.

Like a quiet caress,

when your thoughts grow heavy

and the night feels longer than it should.

When storms gather in your head

and every answer feels far away,

I’ll sit beside your silence,

unafraid of the thunder,

listening for the small brave calm

inside you.

When the world leans too hard

against your shoulders,

I will steady your hands

until your strength remembers itself.

I’ll be the unseen anchor,

the gentle pull toward shore,

the warmth you notice

after you’ve stopped shivering.

No burning skies—

just a constant light,

soft and unwavering,

so wherever you wander,

a part of you knows

you are held